Drawing a line from Jeremy Lin to Jonathan Kuminga

[editorial + ode to Conant Chi]

Not gonna lie, the following piece is a bit personal, but I just really don’t know how to explain how I feel about the Jonathan Kuminga “stalemate” any better way. I’ll try to keep it at a digestible length.

Jeremy Lin retired recently. Definitely an all-time great as it relates to achievements of Asian-Americans, especially from the Bay. I had a personal connection to him, myself, if you can dig up an article written by Ethan Sherwood Strauss — yeah, I know, that’s kinda bonkers now that we can look back 🤯 — for The Classical out there on the Interwebs.

Lin was one of the best basketball players I’d ever seen in real life, just by his subtle tenacity on defense, is what I noticed in those San Francisco Pro-Am games from the Summer of 2008. S/O Jon Greenberg for running the league for forever and Al Johnson, who let me sit at the scorer’s table a couple nights when Lin played. Oh, and Bing Dionida, long-time scorekeeper.

But I’ma derail that train of thought right quick: Jeremy’s retirement also made me think of Conant Chi. The SF locals know.

I think while you’d definitely have to pick JLin first for playground pickup just because of his size, if I’m being real — and no disrespect to Jeremy — Chi is the the most-skilled, most prolific bucket-getter (and in multiples of three) in the history of Chinese-Americans.

Note: Rex Walters doesn’t count because he was half-Japanese.

Not to mention, Chi’s handles were incredibly efficient and him running the fast break was an absolute thing of beauty. The scissor-kick between-the-legs assist on the break. But yeah, he’s only like 6’1” 175-180 lbs or something. Stocky and can take physicality, but not slow. Incredible motor.

I tell you what, it’s usually the motor — Josh Urbiztondo had it, too — that tells you if some ringer you randomly happen to be watching playing pickup played pro somewhere.

It’s like you just have to trust me on this one. This is no different than dudes from Oakland saying Hook Mitchell was the best point guard they’d ever seen. We just didn’t have iPhones and social media back then. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Idk, someone should do an oral history piece on Conant (we all just called him “Co”). Interview all his old teammates from the SF Associates Japanese League organization. Fly to Taiwan and track down some old teammates and coaches or something. I can maybe do the former, someday. After retiring from all those red-eye flights to Miami and Atlanta and New York and Toronto covering the Warriors for LetsGoWarriors, I’m just not keen on getting on planes anymore.

Co was a gym rat who could net SF City College 25 points a night. I heard he used to play hookie from high school just to go play street ball somewhere — wait, there’s people playing pickup in the daytime on school days? I guess maybe he worked on his game on some outdoor court by Lowell High School? I’ll hit up Co later and find out.

This was way before AAU was a thing. He high-tailed it Taipei to go pro at a young age, get paid for his craft.

I’ll try to keep it short, but the biggest memories of Co were the annual Cornerstone Church tournaments held during every July 4th weekend. It would always come down to the Associates on one side of the bracket and a Filipino squad named Ling Nam (sponsored by the restaurant in Daly City) — credit to Cornerstone’s legendary basketball aficionado Damon Au for rigging those matchups correctly; I kid, I kid! 😝

Every year it would come down to the point guard matchup: Conant Chi versus Ling Nam’s Frank McKinney, a spindly 6’3”-with-long-wingspan half-black, half-Filipino PBA pro who famously had tried out for the Boston Celtics during an era where tryouts with NBA teams was unheard of unless you were a top player in the NCAA.

Man, it was like Co was facing Reed Richards every time down the court and yet he held his own against a superior athlete. Just the sheer will, confidence, ball-handling skills — the famous spin move that somehow kept the ball up high above his waist, protected by that stocky frame because every time McKinney would sit down or reach in: nope, no turnover, no problem, not even a flinch by Co — oh, and the threat of the super-quick-release long ball.

With superior unselfish ball movement, cutting, screen-setting, defense, and just overall through-the-roof role-playing around Chi and fellow efficient scorer from the mid-range, Michi Langfeldt, plus the inside presence of 6’4” smashmouth center Rick Ito, the SF Associates pretty much always prevailed over the more freelance-but-athletic Ling Nam in the championship.

I mean, back in the day when the Warriors sucked, under the radar, this was the best basketball being played for miles. I remember mutual Cal alum friend Loretta Louie proudly saying she was driving way out to St. Ignatius High School to watch Co play. Not to go actually play in the tournament. Just to go watch! Talk about love for the game.

One season of the Japanese League (aka NAU, the “Nippon Athletic Union”, borne out of the WWII internment camps), played on Sundays only, I had the fortune to somehow pick up Co for my own team. Idk, maybe he had changed his plans that year from playing in Taiwan, maybe the Associates had a full roster already, I can’t remember and he of the three Taipei Super League championships certainly has other hoop memories filling up his brain and told me he can’t remember either, but I’m so lucky to have picked him up for my squad.

We also had the fortune of having Jeremy Lee available, a small lefty scorer with just an incredible feel for the game. I think I had Devin Kanzawa, yet another diminutive ball-handler, but deferential, whom I met while playing in the SF Japantown Wednesday night league — where I’d recently won the championship on a team led by another SF amateur ball legend, Brian Baptista, and I was their 2-guard who was second in the league in scoring at 26 ppg behind Langfeldt at 28 ppg.

Finally, that Sunday for the J-League we had Matt Gringas, an up-and-coming younger power forward or center post-up type who sometimes showed flashes, but most times didn’t. Probably felt more comfortable facing up from the perimeter than posting up. Even back in the day, guys like Ito who embraced the smashmouth style, they were few and far between.

One game at Crocker Middle School in San Bruno, we hosted the SJ Kidz — which happened to be Walters’ old team, although obviously he’d left long ago for Northwestern then Kansas and then the NBA.

People don’t know, the SJ Kidz were like “splash siblings” left and right. They had so many three-point shooters: Guy Kitigawa, Derek Mune, Johnny Kajitani, later Garrett Higashi and others I’m forgetting. They had ball-handler table-setter speedsters in Josh Tsutsui, Derek’s brother Lance Mune and Josh’s brother Chris Tsutsui.

That particular Sunday, it was like two depleted teams for whatever reason. It was 5-on-5, so I — at a skinny 6’1” 170 lbs — had to play power forward and guard their linebacker-sized Tim Tully, who was known for playing dirty underneath, even throwing an elbow or two. I was even wearing some Antoine Carr-like Oakley goggles/glasses because about a month prior, as I had been severely poked and 80% temporarily blinded in my right eye by a Filipino kid in a weeknight league in Daly City. I could see 100% by the Sunday J-League game against the Kidz, though.

So against Tully, I had to draw upon all the box-out drills I did in high school and set picks all day, rebound and pass, pray I didn’t get elbowed in the eye by Tully lol. I think I spent 95% of the game inside the arc that game! We won, like, 105-100. Chi, Lee, Kitigawa, and Mune probably all scored 25+ each, with a bevy of threes. I should’ve kept a copy of the scorebook (only kept track of points and fouls) because J-League headquarters required you mail in their carbon copy version back then. It even had to be signed by the refs. But anyways, I’m pretty sure I had at least 10 rebounds and 5 assists that day.

After the game, Co came up to me and said, “Man, Rich, you played a great game!”

I’ve never forgotten that. That’s an all-time basketball memory for me. That’s, like, easily a Top Five personal basketball milestone.

The best-skilled Asian-American basketball player ever out of the Bay (again, love you JLin, but…), he just came up to me, his teammate, and shook my hand.

We actually struggled that season, despite the one epic barn-burner victory over the fabled Kidz. Probably lost in the first round of the playoffs or something. Maybe some guys couldn’t make it on a consistent basis.

So that matchup versus Tim Tully is the only thing I can remember from that season.

Would I do that again? Do all the little things? Box out, rebound, outlet, get the ball seven feet from the hoop and not do my patented mid-range fade I learned from watching tapes of Michael Jordan, but instead pass it back out and literally be looking for Co and Jeremy every possession? Win super-entertaining nail-biter games that had teams scoring a hundred apiece?

Hell effin’ nah.

☑️ “Good game” compliment by a legend. I’m good.

Give me a team that has a bonafide limited-skill set power forward to guard Tully instead of that job falling to me, get me a couple guys who can defend guys like Lee and Langfeldt, I’ll go guard Conant Chi myself if he’s back on the Associates, but let me spread my wings and do the Jordan cuts and fades, get to my spots.

Let me score my 15 points per game the way I know how, as long as we have a fighting chance to beat the SF Associates, with or without Co.

So y’all please back the F off Jonathan Kuminga. He’s won a ring as a teammate of an all-time great, sacrificed his game for others, for whole 82-game seasons. Let him love the game, already!

😁 Thank you for letting me explain. Have a nice day. And happy retirement — I mean, Happy Conant Chi Appreciation Month, with all due respect to Linsanity. 🙏 ✌️

Let’s go Warriors. Take your time, JK. Take your time, Joe Lacob. You’re a venture capitalist at heart who can’t help but negotiate the way you know how. Do you. Basketball is basketball is basketball. We’ll all be fine.

🫶💙💛